and ceremony–no occasion for it, no enemy around.
Toward midnight I set out, equipped with the countersign,
and picked my way toward the lonely region where Adler was
to keep his watch. It was so dark that I stumbled right on
a dim figure almost before I could get out a protecting word.
The sentinel hailed and I answered, both at the same moment.
I added, ‘It’s only me–the fortune-teller.’ Then I slipped to the poor
devil’s side, and without a word I drove my dirk into his heart!
YA WOHL, laughed I, it WAS the tragedy part of his fortune, indeed!
As he fell from his horse, he clutched at me, and my blue goggles
remained in his hand; and away plunged the beast dragging him,
with his foot in the stirrup.
I fled through the woods, and made good my escape, leaving the accusing
goggles behind me in that dead man’s hand.
This was fifteen or sixteen years ago. Since then I have wandered
aimlessly about the earth, sometimes at work, sometimes idle;
sometimes with money, sometimes with none; but always tired of life,
and wishing it was done, for my mission here was finished, with the act
of that night; and the only pleasure, solace, satisfaction I had,
in all those tedious years, was in the daily reflection,
‘I have killed him!’
Four years ago, my health began to fail. I had wandered into Munich,
in my purposeless way. Being out of money, I sought work,
and got it; did my duty faithfully about a year, and was then
given the berth of night watchman yonder in that dead-house
which you visited lately. The place suited my mood. I liked it.
I liked being with the dead–liked being alone with them.
I used to wander among those rigid corpses, and peer into
their austere faces, by the hour. The later the time,
the more impressive it was; I preferred the late time.
Sometimes I turned the lights low: this gave perspective, you see;
and the imagination could play; always, the dim receding ranks
of the dead inspired one with weird and fascinating fancies.
Two years ago–I had been there a year then–I was sitting all alone
in the watch-room, one gusty winter’s night, chilled, numb, comfortless;
drowsing gradually into unconsciousness; the sobbing of the wind
and the slamming of distant shutters falling fainter and fainter
upon my dulling ear each moment, when sharp and suddenly
that dead-bell rang out a blood-curdling alarum over my head!
The shock of it nearly paralyzed me; for it was the first time I had
ever heard it.
I gathered myself together and flew to the corpse-room. About midway
down the outside rank, a shrouded figure was sitting upright,
wagging its head slowly from one side to the other–a grisly spectacle!
Its side was toward me. I hurried to it and peered into its face.
Heavens, it was Adler!
Can you divine what my first thought was? Put into words,
it was this: ‘It seems, then, you escaped me once:
there will be a different result this time!’
Evidently this creature was suffering unimaginable terrors.
Think what it must have been to wake up in the midst of that
voiceless hush, and, look out over that grim congregation
of the dead! What gratitude shone in his skinny white face
when he saw a living form before him! And how the fervency
of this mute gratitude was augmented when his eyes fell
upon the life-giving cordials which I carried in my hands!
Then imagine the horror which came into this pinched face when I
put the cordials behind me, and said mockingly–
‘Speak up, Franz Adler–call upon these dead. Doubtless they will listen
and have pity; but here there is none else that will.’
He tried to speak, but that part of the shroud which bound his jaws,
held firm and would not let him. He tried to lift imploring hands,
but they were crossed upon his breast and tied. I said-
‘Shout, Franz Adler; make the sleepers in the distant
streets hear you and bring help. Shout–and lose no time,
for there is little to lose. What, you cannot? That is a pity;